


Absolution

by cybel



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Gauda Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 01:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17736098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybel/pseuds/cybel
Summary: Blake knew that Avon was alone in whatever refuge he had created for himself inside his brilliant, fractured mind. Blake did not exist for him there. Not as a friend. Not as an enemy. And certainly not as a lover.





	Absolution

**Author's Note:**

> The original version of this story was printed in the B7 fanzine _Resistance 4_ (1990), published by Mkashef Enterprises and edited by Wendy Rathbone. The zine's Fanlore page can be found [here](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Resistance_\(Blake%27s_7_zine\)). Please note that this Fanlore page contains NSFW images.

Avon lay silently in Blake's arms, too stiff to be asleep, too motionless to be awake.

 _He's there again_ , Blake thought hopelessly. _He's wherever he goes when he can't bear to be here anymore. When he can't bear to be with me anymore_.

Blake knew that Avon was alone in whatever refuge he had created for himself inside his brilliant, fractured mind. Blake didn't exist for him there. Not as a friend. Not as an enemy. And certainly not as a lover.

Blake held on tighter, using the warmth of his body, the force of his will, to anchor Avon to reality, hoping that eventually the beating of his heart, the whisper of his breath against the computer tech's face would once again call Avon back from the solitary, silent place into which he had retreated.

"Come back to me, Avon," he murmured over and over again. "Please come back to me." Eventually a shuddering sigh gusted against Blake's chest, and the rigid body in his arms went limp. 

"Thank God," Blake said shakily, his hands moving over his lover's body as if assessing it for injury. "You were gone so long this time, Avon. Longer than ever before. I was afraid you weren't coming back."

"Oh, there's no need to worry," Avon's pain-filled voice whispered into the hollow of Blake's neck. "Don't you know yet that I'll always come back to you? I'm yours now, Blake, just as you always wanted. Killing you bound me to you forever."

Blake pushed away from Avon and grabbed the other man's shoulders, shaking him gently. "We've been through all this before, Avon. You didn't kill me. You killed Servalan's clone of me. You knew it wasn't me. I would never have treated you so carelessly, so stupidly. You knew that."

"Yes," Avon answered obediently, like a child reciting an often rehearsed lesson. "I knew it wasn't you. I knew it was a trap." 

"And you know that I'm alive, and that you're safe here with me." 

"I know." 

"But?" Blake pressed, hearing the lingering doubt in Avon's voice. 

Avon's eyes, large and dark and empty, looked at Blake, looked through him. "I know it here," he said, tapping his forehead lightly with a blunt fingertip, "but some part of me still believes I _did_ kill you on Gauda Prime, and all this," he included their room, their bed, and Blake himself in a broad gesture, "is just some masochistic fantasy I've created to punish myself for my crime." 

Avon might have been talking about the weather for all the emotion his face and voice revealed as he went on to ask quietly, "Am I mad, Blake? I know the others think I am. Do you think I'm mad, too?" 

Blake shivered and pulled his lover into a protective embrace. "I think you're tired," he answered evasively. "I think you've had a hard time of it, and now you need to rest. Go to sleep, Avon. We'll talk in the morning." 

"Yes. All right," Avon answered listlessly. His body went lax against Blake, and he fell asleep almost immediately.  


_Sleep is just one more way for you to escape from me, isn't it?_ Blake thought sadly as he too closed his eyes and soon surrendered to Morpheus. 

 

When Blake awoke the next morning he was alone in bed. He got up and went to the window, quickly scanning the cliffs overlooking the bay. As he had expected, Avon sat in his usual place on a wide, flat boulder near the cliff's edge. He spent hours there every day, his knees drawn up to his chin, watching the waves breaking on the rocks below him. 

The immensity of the ocean seemed to comfort Avon in a way that the immensity of space never had. Blake was glad of that; Avon had found little enough solace in his troubled life. Still, a stab of jealousy assaulted him. He wanted to be Avon's solace, his source of comfort. Instead, the fates had cast him in the opposite role. 

Blake rested one large hand against the cool surface of the window. What if Avon truly was beyond his reach? What if he always had been, even before Star One and everything that had come between them since then? Even before Avon had, in his heart at least, killed Blake on Gauda Prime? 

Suddenly he was angry at the computer tech. It wasn't his fault that Avon would rather wallow in self-pity than face the past squarely and get on with his life, their life together. To hell with him. 

Blake ran his hands through his tangled curls. No. He didn't mean that. He knew Avon felt like he was already in hell, and even if it was a hell of his own making, Blake still had played more than a passive role in sending him there. 

"I want you, Avon," Blake told the distant figure of his lover. "I want you, but I want you whole, not just the empty shell of yourself you've become. I want your cynicism and your dry wit, your bad temper and your obstinacy. I want you. I love you." _And my love is killing you_. 

After he had rescued Avon and the others from Servalan's troops on Gauda Prime, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to Blake that he and Avon should renew the relationship they had begun shortly before Star One. And if Avon had seemed confused and distant then, well, that had seemed natural, too, after the heavy stun he had suffered during the fighting.  


It wasn't until much later, after they had reached the rebel base here on Athena, that Blake realized something was seriously wrong with Avon, and it was later still that he began to understand just what that something was. Although the computer tech had known it was not the real Blake he faced and killed in the Command Center on GP, Avon, in some part of his mind, wished it had been. 

What Blake didn't understand was why that should be the case. Avon loved him. Blake was sure of that even though the other man had never actually said so. There was no way Avon could fake the passion he brought to their shared bed even now, no way he could hide the need, both physical and emotional, that still shone in his eyes when his defenses fell before Blake's loving assaults. 

Yes, Avon loved him. That much was clear. But it was also clear that Avon did not want to love him. 

Blake's hand curled into a fist, and he hit the window film with all his strength. It stretched outward at the blow then immediately rebounded back into shape, not nearly as satisfying as the crash of real glass shattering, but ultimately less dangerous and less embarrassing. Blake sighed and turned away from the window. He walked slowly to the comm unit and buzzed Vila's room. 

"Wozzit?" Vila's voice, still fuzzy with sleep, answered his summons a moment later. 

"He's already outside, Vila," Blake said without preamble. 

"Oh. Right. On my way." The channel went dead. 

_Vila's as afraid for him as I am_ , Blake thought wearily. They all were, all his people. Even Tarrant, though he'd never willingly admit it. 

Blake went back to the window and stood watch over the lonely figure of his lover until Vila came into sight. The little Delta thief trudged slowly forward and silently took up his usual vigil near the brooding Alpha. 

_What is it about you, Avon_ , Blake wondered, _that makes people give you their love and their loyalty no matter how badly you treat them, no matter how hard you try to drive them away? Don't you see, we're **your** prisoners, not the other was around. It's **you** who holds **us** captive_. 

Blake felt the sharp stab of pain between his eyes that heralded the onset of another one of his migraines. Cursing, he headed for the bathroom to take something before it got so bad that nothing would help relieve it. 

 

Avon sat staring out at the waves breaking against the rocky coastline below him. Their endless repetition soothed him, lulled him into a half-hypnotized state in which rational thought was unnecessary, even impossible.  


He hated his life, hated himself, but here, watching the endless rhythm of the sea, it almost seemed possible to forget all that. What did any of it matter in the context of so much mindless force? What did anyone matter? They were all just so many grains of sand waiting to be tossed and scattered by the relentless advance and retreat of the waves. 

"Avon?" Vila's voice was timid, deferential. At another time it would have annoyed him, but now he felt nothing at all. "Avon?" Vila repeated when he didn't answer. 

"Yes, fool?" Avon asked mildly, the appellation more one of habit than of rancor. 

"Don't you think we'd better go back to the base now? It's going to rain." 

Avon looked up at the lowering sky. He had not seen the clouds roll in to blot out the sun, had not felt the wind quicken around him. 

"You needn't stay if you don't want to," he answered disinterestedly. "I don't recall requesting the pleasure of your company." 

"But Blake—" 

"Blake!" Emotion swept across Avon's face, highlighting his sensuous mouth with tension. "Hell, we wouldn't want to upset the great and glorious hero of the rebellion, now would we?" 

He rose in one graceful movement and stood looming over the little thief, who automatically cringed away as if expecting a blow. Avon winced and stepped back at the sight, the anger in his eyes melting into uncertainty. "I didn't…" he began. "I wouldn't…"  


Vila's mobile features, rearranging themselves into a mask of pity and concern in the face of Avon's crumbling control, mumbled, "I know, Avon. I know. You wouldn't hurt me. Not deliberately. Not again." 

"Not again," Avon repeated, shame coursing through him as he remembered Malodaar, as he remembered the look of surprise and reproach on Vila's features just before he fell in the Command Center on Gauda Prime.

His mouth twisted into a cynical mockery of a smile. "You really are a fool, Vila," he said, "if you truly believe that." 

Despite the bitterness of his words, Avon's expression softened again as he looked at the shivering thief. "Come on then," he said. "Take me home and tuck me in bed like a good little nanny. Make Blake proud of you. 

"Avon," Vila shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, "it's not like that, and you know it. We're Just worried about you, that's all." 

Avon didn't answer. Instead, he shrugged and turned to walk silently back toward the waiting buildings, Vila following equally silently at his heels. 

The storm caught them, the force of the downpour blotting out the daylight and soaking them through before they could reach the shelter of the rebel base. Freezing and dripping wet, Vila dropped Avon off at his quarters and then hurried on to his own room to shower and change. He was still toweling his thinning hair dry and sniffling a bit with what he was certain was an incipient case of pneumonia when he was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. "Come in," he called. 

Blake came in and looked around. "Avon isn't here with you?" he asked, a slight frown furrowing his brow. 

Vila's eyes widened. "No," he said. "I left him at your room to dry off." 

"He's not there."

"Then where—oh, no!" Vila paled. "He didn't want to come in, Blake. He didn't want to come away from the cliff's edge. You don't think…?" 

"No," Blake answered. "Avon might be a lot of things right now, but he's not suicidal. Still, he might have gone back outside for some other reason. You get dressed and start searching in here; I'll get an environmental suit and check around outside." 

"Right," Vila answered, reaching into his closet for something dry to put on. "Find him, Blake," he began, but the big man was already gone. "Be careful," he finished instead, fighting down the tingle of apprehension that had set up residence in his stomach. "I don't have that many friends, you know. I couldn't bear to lose either one of you." 

 

Blake sealed the seam of the environmental suit with one smooth movement. Despite his confident statement to Vila that Avon was not suicidal, Blake was afraid. What if escaping into the lonely places of his own mind, escaping into sleep, were no longer enough for Avon? What if his desire to be free of Blake had finally become more important to him than anything else? Wasn't that what Blake had secretly feared all along? Wasn't that possibility what Blake had refused to even consider in his selfish desire to keep Avon with him? 

Last night Avon had asked Blake if he thought he was mad. The truth was, Blake did think so, though he didn't want to admit it even to himself. Blake wanted to protect Avon, but how could he protect him from his own madness, especially if, as he had come to fear, Blake himself was the cause of that madness? 

He shook himself free of his reverie. He had to find Avon. That was paramount. Afterwards, there would be time to decide what to do. Afterwards, he would worry about finding the strength to let his lover go if that was what Avon needed, what he wanted. He lowered the suit's visor into place and stepped out into the storm. 

 

Avon stood on the edge of the cliff, legs braced wide against the force of the wind. Rain pelted him, running down the planes and valleys of his face in a half-blinding torrent, but he payed it no heed. Indeed, it was the wildness, the pervasiveness of the storm that attracted him, that had beckoned to him from the dry safety of his quarters. It was the mindlessness of it that called to him. He wanted to share in that mindlessness, to drown himself figuratively, if not literally, in it. To forget, just for the moment, who and what he was. To lose himself. 

"Avon!" Blake's voice ripped into his consciousness, dragging him back from the edge of… what? Transcendence? Annihilation? 

Suddenly Avon was just cold and wet and confused. He turned toward the voice behind him as his only anchor-point to reality, and as he did so his foot slid on the rain-slick rocks, throwing him off balance. He teetered toward the edge of the cliff, arms flailing as he tried desperately to regain his lost footing. 

_I don't want to die_ , he realized with more than a little surprise. 

Blake was rushing toward him with his arms outstretched. Without conscious thought, Avon reached out to him, and Blake's hand closed tightly around his own, swinging him forward, out of danger. 

Avon grabbed at Blake with his other hand, instinctively trying to pull the bigger man to him, but unaccountably Blake pushed him away, and Avon fell to his knees on the rocky verge. He twisted around and froze in disbelief. Blake's momentum as he rushed forward to save him had taken him a step too far. As Avon watched helplessly, Blake careened backward into empty space and disappeared. 

"No," Avon hissed. Then, "No-o—o—o!" His anguished howl was carried away on a rush of wind. Numb, his muscles slack with shock, Avon raised his trembling hands to cover his face, wet now with tears as well as rain.

The storm taunted him in his own voice. _You wanted to be free of him_ , it said. _You wanted peace. Well, this is freedom. This is peace. The freedom of death. The peace of the grave_. 

Suddenly Avon began to laugh. So, despite all his fears, he hadn't been mad after all. This was madness, this cold, aching emptiness. He felt himself embrace it gladly. This one last time he would follow Blake, and then, fittingly, it would be done. 

Gathering his muscles for the leap outward into eternal darkness, Avon paused at the sound of labored breathing close below him. 

"Avon!" Blake's voice. Impossible. "Avon, help me. I can't hold on much longer!" 

Avon scrambled forward on his belly until his head and shoulders hung out over the edge of the cliff. There, just below him, Blake clung precariously to a crumbling lip of rock. 

"I've got you," Avon shouted, grabbing one of Blake's wrists just as the big man's grip began to loosen. "Grab hold of me with your other hand and pull yourself up!" 

Somehow, together, they managed it, and soon they both lay panting and gasping for breath, each clinging to the other with exhausted, trembling arms. Blake's tremors gradually diminished, but Avon's intensified, and his teeth began to chatter. "You're freezing," Blake said, his voice tight with worry. "Let's get you back to the base." 

Avon only nodded, too weak from exposure and relief to argue. He let Blake help him to his feet, but when he started to shrug out of his environmental jacket, Avon stopped him. 

"No," he said, his jaw firming stubbornly. "No playing the martyr this time, Blake. There's no sense in both of us getting wet. I'm already soaked through. A few more minutes won't make any difference." A slow smile curved Blake's mouth at his words, but Avon was unable to read the expression in his eyes behind their protective visor. "What?" Avon asked uncomfortably. "What is it?" 

"Nothing," the other man answered huskily, wrapping an arm around Avon's shoulder. "Let's go home." 

 

By the time they reached their room Avon was shivering uncontrollably, and his hands were too numb to undo the fastenings on his clothing. 

"Here, let me do that," Blake offered. When he had Avon stripped of his wet things, he guided him gently into the shower stall. Setting the thermal controls to the highest tolerable level, Blake turned on the water and watched until Avon's tremors began to abate. When Avon finally reached for the soap dispenser and began to lather his hair, Blake left him to finish up on his own. 

The next thing Blake did was to call Vila and tell the relieved thief that he had found Avon and that the computer tech was all right. Then he slowly removed his own clothing and slipped exhaustedly into bed.

Blake chewed distractedly on a finger as he waited for his lover. He felt tense, expectant. Something important had happened on that cliff. Something had changed. Some part of Avon that had been missing had returned to him. Blake had seen it in his eyes, seen it in his stance on the walk back to the base. Unfortunately, Blake wasn't sure what that something was or whether it boded well or ill for their future together. 

When Avon finally appeared in the bathroom doorway he was still naked, his smooth skin glowing pink from the hot shower he had just finished. Blake eyed him hungrily. "You look none the worse for wear," he said cautiously, testing the waters of Avon's mood. 

"I thought you were dead," Avon said. 

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Blake asked softly into the silence that followed. 

"I thought so." Avon shifted his gaze away from Blake's. "I was wrong." 

"I'm glad to hear it. You saved my life out there." 

"So I did." Avon smiled faintly. "But then," he added, "you also saved mine." 

"We're even, then. All debts paid." 

"And all sins forgiven?" Avon asked wistfully. 

"You tell me. Have you finally let go of your guilt and forgiven yourself?" 

"You make it sound so simple."

Blake shrugged. "It can be if you'll let it." 

"I don't know," Avon said doubtfully. "I just don't know. But I'm willing to try. Will you help me, Blake?" 

Blake was out of bed in an instant and across the room. He swept Avon into his arms, and the other man clung to him, offering his lips for the intense, frantic kisses Blake pressed onto them. 

"Of course I'll help you," Blake vowed fiercely, holding Avon's face between his big hands. He took a deep breath and continued before his courage deserted him, "You're not a prisoner here, Avon. You're free to come and go as you wish. If you can't bear to be here, if you decide you want to leave, just say so."

"And if I do say so, you will let me go?" 

Blake closed his eyes against the intensity of Avon's gaze. "Yes," he whispered. "If that's what you really want, I'll let you go." 

"But?" Avon asked ruthlessly, mimicking their earlier conversation, demanding the whole truth from Blake as Blake had demanded it from him the night before. 

"But," Blake admitted, "first I'll do everything in my power to convince you to stay." 

"Ah," Avon breathed. "Just as I thought." He pressed himself against Blake, eliciting a low moan from his lover. "I won't make it easy for you, Blake," Avon warned. "I'm an obstinate man. Convincing me could take a long, long time."

"Then perhaps I had better begin now," Blake murmured huskily, reaching between them to capture Avon's burgeoning erection in his hand. 

"Yes," Avon hissed in response. "I had rather hoped that you would."


End file.
